1 SEPTEMBER 1855, Page 10

THE SPIRIT OF LAW.

A. PEOPLE'S code of laws is commonly one of the best reflexes of the national character, and no codes can more strikingly contrast than those of France and England. The Frenchman generalizes, we particularize ; France has a Code Napoleon, we have the Statutes at large ; there the Government -takes thought for everybody and directs every process, here -we direct Government ; there a gendarme inspects everything, here we regard the policeman with jealousy ; there officials distribute and control all kinds of noxious or unpleasant occupations, an Englishman boasts of having " established a nuisance." It is curious to observe how a some- what exclusive tendency in each country results, to a certain extent, in producing effects the very opposite to what might have been expected. Notwithstanding the all-directing-eye of a bureau, Paris is absolutely destitute of anything in the name of sewerage,. and rejoices only in the organization of a band for the special and periodical transport of sewage matter from each and every indi- vidual house ; while we, who look to particulars, have a gigantic system of drainage, and are constantly labouring in the aspiration to have a better. On the other hand, by lookiirg so exclusively to special results in this country, we overlook the larger results. We have doctors or regulations to prevent specific diseases in cer- tain cases, and pass laws and regulations which create disease on a far larger scale. We impose a fine upon parents who neglect the specific remedy against smallpox, we fine a man for maintaining a nuisance that might offend the nostrils sr injure the constitution of a score of people in his neighbourhood 1. and weout rules which throw whole masses of the population in a :a:Ilion to be enervated in body and soul—dooming entire classes to 'be the de- praved parents of depraved progeny. But here again, perhapa, the result is explained by our national propensity to deal with the specific and with the specific only. ' We arrive at these general observations from particular expe- riences. It is some years since we appointed inspectors of fac- tories. We found peculiar abuses existing in those establish- ments • children condemned to labour too soon, kept at it too long, treated with cruelty, consigned almost from the cradle to hopeless ignorance, to a youth of depravity, and an early grave. We passed laws to prevent the too -copious use of "billy-rollers" by overlookers—to compel the attendance of children at school—to abridge their labour—then to abridge the labour of women and young persons ; and it is only after'having gone through a great variety of specific experiences, each one leaving something still-to- be done, that we arrive at the stage at which we ask the question, whether, instead of trying to remedy the specific results of general causes in this empirical manner, we might not attack the broad causes? The "Report on the Laws and Ordinances in force in France for the Regulation of Noxious Trades and Occupations," by Dr. Waller Lewis, shows us that, equally under a minute police-inspection and under -our somewhat modified laissez-faire system, the real evils under which towns labour are produced more by general than particular causes. One 'town differs from another in salubrity, yet the populations of the manufacturing, towns of France are weak and diminutive, and they become etio- lated like plants seeluded-fromthe light and air. The promiscu- ous assemblage doll ages and -sexes inflames the passions, and the- contagion of vice acts like a kind of furor, debauchery accelerating the deterioration' until actually the race-degenerates. The women being weaker, 'furnish a larger proportion of disease, arising from- low pay, scanty food, poor clothing, and bad lodging ; and they too furnish that class which, whether regulated by the police w- in France, or only driven by the police from the broad street into the narrow street as with us, constitutes the depository of a certain kind of vice—perhaps, alas! not the worst vice by which large towns are scourged. It does not appear that in all cases these evils are pro- duced by the nature of the employments. There is nothing peculiarly noxious in weaving, if it be not too long protracted ; nothing poison- ous in a knacker's yard, incredible as the assertion seems ; nothing, certainly, in the assemblage of numbers, as -many schools and re- ligious communities in all eountries can attest: but there is much in the congregation of numbers to breathe a limited amount of air, to perform with a limited amount of muscular force every stroke

of work that is possible, and by protraction of labour to be left with so little time for enjoyment, that pleasure has as it were to be swallowed in concentrated draughts by a palate vitiated against the true flavour. It is not that the assemblage of num- bers inflames the passions, or that weaving demoralizes ; but -it is that protracted toil, poor food, starved minds and narrowed hours

for recreation, create a starveling fevered minds, of existence, in which lassitude alternates with intoxication.

Perhaps exclaims the reformet, the evil lies-in largetowns f- end in France they 'would -forbid the formation of a town beyond certain dimaiisane4- Whatever the causes, the results nre unmis- takeable.; Our licruithig-Offitiers know ivell'hOw difficult it is, in the most ifunierbue classes, to find a sufficient number of men up to the right standard in point of height; and we believe we are correct in stating that in certain cases the standard with regard to health was relaxed some time since,—that is to say, there are soldiers enlisted shorter than we should have taken some time back, and in some cases so diseased that formerly they would not have been thought fit for service. Now, a nation whose very armies are shorter, 'feebler, and more sickly, is losing ground. We so dislike, in this country, to consider any general laws for the government of the whole body, that perhaps high philosophers of the laissez-faire' school will say—" Never mind : let all mankind grow more weakly, more sickly, and more timid; the human race. will then become more thOughtful, less capable of campaigns, less able to fight ; and the reign of peace will be established on earth." What, however, if in the mean time some Russian Czar should re- cruit his forces from men who do not toll in factories' but scour plaius, who feed badly but, sufficiently, and who think not at all Really, we have been not too soon reminded of the question, whether it is well for an educated but etiolated Englishman to forget that it is not requisite- only to heat a Russian Chancellor in argument, but,also in arms P • Nothiag has been said of happinessat home.- There is no doubt that the actual condition of the working population is brought about very much by laws designed for specific purposes, but having unforeseen results accidentally. In some cases, the laws have been real reforms although vitiated by defects which are to be found in all human institutions. Some time since we hada state of the laws with reference to the poor which directly encouraged laziness in the uneducated, the propagation of numbers by the lower specimens of humanity, and all the vices of unthrift. We reformed those laws : we endeavoured to make idleness "repulsive"; and to a great ex- tent we succeeded in driving pauper stipendiaries into workhouses, but also field-labourers into factories and all classes into a toil as concentrated and .protracted as it could be. The large towns are the very -prodnet and pride of.mOdern times; and yet the state of the populace in those towns is perhaps the cause of the deepest-and most gigantic -uneasiness. They are the -nests of epidemics moral as well as physical, threatening to undermine the souls and bodies of the whole natiOn. But we should go a very small way to re- medy this newly-discovered evil if we only applied medicaments in specific instances. We have already found the necessity of looking to the building of our towns, and we absolutely forbid the construction of ways narrower than the height of the buildings between which they run. We have just begin:is. medical adminis- tration. at we plight to look behind the tepical remedies for the superficial symptoms, into-the- causes which produce large towns, with popular overwork, and s 'general state not only of disease but of low vitality. When we passed a poor-law which drove the poor as with a scourge from idleness, the state-directly inter- fered to assist in the pressure which causes overwork and over- crowding. So far as the development of our factories is concerned, both the overcrowding and the overwork have proved burdens ra- ther than aids. We are quite aware that some improvements have been kept back only from an apprehension that they would throw large numbers out of work. A delay in the use of woolcombing by machinery was protracted from that consideration ; and it also operates with other causes to check the inventions of those work- ing men whose natural ingenuity is stimulated by practical experience. There is every reason to believe that if a very large portion of the town population were removed by emigration, recruit- ment, or any other cause, inventions to supersede raw labour by machinery would spring up with sudden rigour: and the same may be said of the field as of the factory. On economical grounds, therefore, there was no- necessity for that extreme pressure which has produced the overwork and overcrowding. On the other hand, there has been a tendency of our lawmaking to draw abroad line of separation between the workman and capitalist; and this was created very much by a half-reasoning belief that abundance, nay redtindanoe of labour, is necessary in order to give the capitalist the machinery for' executing his idea; it being forgotten that la- bour and capital, if left perfectly free from any kind of collateral pressure, would invariably regulate their own relations and pro- portions irt;the most harmonious manner. Emigration has been a great safety-valve, without which this country might perhaps have suffered far more than it has yet done. The law that leaves men free to contribute small portions of capital in partnerships, withont necessarily forfeiting all their means and rendering them- selves slaves through the effects of our law of debt, is another very recent instance of the mode in which pressure has been alleviated ; and we already have plans in contemplation 'which will bring small capitalists—that is, working men—into the position of ren- dering their capital profitable. There' is no doubt that by 'the operation-of these different causes—the checks upon the bad con- struction of towns, and medical administration, with facilities that diminish the pressure upon the industrious classes—morbific agen- cies are likely to he considerably diminished. But the true states- man will always keep his attention fixed upon the working of general as well as particular causes, and will-watch the tendency of the whole body of laws, as well as the working of particular institutions.

There is one principle which the political economist professes to keep in view while he is writing books, but which he totally overlooks when he is making statutes, and which the statesmen of our day would perhaps have forgotten if it had not been for ex- periences throwing a light upon trade from that quarter which is thought to be the opposite to trade—war. The statesmen who have superintended the modifications of our statute-book appear to have forgotten for the mother-country that great stimulus of all exertion, individual or general, hope. Yet it is the thing which, within the memory of man, has positively created great and power- ful colonies, with a magnificent future certified to their living founders. No industry could excel or equal the labours which have produced the Australian colonies, and which have produced SO many American towns and provinces. In the Crimea, our contractors found it almost impossible to contend with the hard labour before them, until they hit upon the idea of doing the work by a system of volunteering. The same spirit is well known upon that element which is said to bring forth the characteristic quali- ties of the Englishman—the sea. It is true that sailors are paid wages, and upon the whole high wages ; true that they are liable to punishment, and severe punishment. But ask any officer -who can see beneath the surface, whether all the wages and '" oats " in the world could get the work which he can get out of his men by a cheerful voice and a bold example P Men will higgle about wages, and they will bear the cat without a murmur ; but a pleasant voice will make them face the Devil, or toil away their lives with certain death at the end. Although it will be im- possible for a civil statesman to lead the population as a naval officer can lead his crew through battle or storm, still the same principle holds good ; and a well-governed nation, treated with confidence, the laws that regulate it being hopefully explained, and designed in a spirit of hope, will be capable of exertions such as nO enslaved 'country can perform, and it will govern itself so as no autocrat in the world can govern it. These remarks are suggested by some of the last incidents of our own Government at home : -we believe that they will not be a useless memorandum in teach- ing English statesmen, sometimes, in emulation of their forefathers —and, let us add, in emulation of their sons—to rise above that low standard of job lawmaking which in our day is called "prac- tical," but is most grievously so miscalled.